Ghast - Access and Combat Recommendations

Access Directions

Ghasts are found all over Mort Myre Swamp. The best place to fight them (in my not-so-humble opinion) is just inside the Canifis gates, for easy access and banking. The fastest way to get there is to use a ring of slaying to the Morytania Slayer Tower and then run due south for about 20 seconds. Alternatives include the fairy ring code "C K S", a home portal to Canifis, or as a last resort, running from Varrock.

Enter the swamp and then run southwest until you find a large open area -- the ghasts will find you soon enough.

Equipment

Standard melee, ranged or magic gear as appropriate. Wear a Salve amulet if meleeing, as it will increase accuracy and damage.

I have not tried Dharoking here, but I would imagine that it is not especially beneficial, due to how few you can kill per hour anyway.

In addition to your combat gear, you also should bring a blessed silver sickle, both to prevent swamp decay damage and to generate more druid pouch items if necessary. Since these are easy to kill I wear a ring of slaying (for its teleport near the area), to save an inventory slot for drops.

Supplies

High-level players don't need food; lower-levels may need some. Super attack and super strength pots are recommended, as always, to speed kills. Super defence pots will be handy for lower levels but are not needed for higher levels.

In order to make the ghasts visible (see below under combat notes) you need a druid pouch, which is "charged" by filling it with "items of nature" created using the blessed sickle near rotting logs, bushes or branches in Mort Myre Swamp. (You learn how to do this during the Nature Spirit quest, so refer to a guide for that quest if you need a refresher.) There are three items: pears, stems and mushrooms, which are worth 3, 2 and 1 point respectively. The mushrooms are used in Herblore and hence are very expensive, so obviously you don't want to use those. Pears are hard to get from other players, but mort myre stems are not difficult to get on the Grand Exchange, so that is the way to go if you don't want to gather them yourself.

If you want to fill your pouch yourself, there's a spot a few clicks southwest of the Canifis entrance to the swamp where you'll find two bushes, three branches and two logs arranged in a horseshoe shape. Stand in the middle and select "Bloom", then pick the items that appear; when you have at least three pears or stems, fill the pouch. Doing this takes some prayer points, so just continue until out of prayer points. Then teleport to a your house or a location with an altar, save the mushrooms (to use for Herblore or to sell) and then repeat. You can pretty easily get over 1,000 charges in an hour.

Familiar

These are decent herb droppers, so you should use a macaw -- it will give a much higher number of good herbs, and fewer of the low-valued ones.

Combat Notes

Ghasts initially spawn in a form that is nearly entirely transparent, and also immune to attack by players. It must be transformed into a regular monster form using a druid pouch. To fight many ghasts you must "use" the pouch each ghast to make it appear; this will sometimes happen spontaneously when a player gets near a ghast, but it is too slow to just wait for it to happen. Each time a ghast appears, one "charge" is used up from your druid pouch, which can be refilled as descibed in the supplies section above.

Ghasts that have not been made visible are very hard to see, and they don't appear on your minimap. I have found that it is easier to spot them with the camera angle panned all the way down to eye level. Fortunately, while they are aggressive, they will tend to swarm around you, so you can use your pouch on one after the other. In fact, if they stop doing this, I recommend running out of the area briefly and then returning, so they become aggressive again.

Because of the pouch annoyance, for maximum efficiency you should prepare the next kill while doing the current one. This is especially important for higher level players to get a high kill count (maximizing Prayer XP and drops). While fighting the current ghast, right-click the druid pouch and select "Use". Now find the next ghast you want to kill, and hover the mouse over it. As soon as the current ghast is killed, click to make the next one visible, and start fighting. Since most of the ghasts' drops are small amounts of coins, fishing bait and other junk, you only need to break your stride to pick up herbs and other good drops.

Drop Notes

The main attraction of these monsters is that they provide 30 Prayer XP each time one is killed (on top of normal combat experience). This works out to the equivalent of roughly two sets of normal bones used on a gilded altar, which isn't too shabby. Aside from that, their only real drop of consequence is herbs. Don't bother picking up coins, or air, fire or body rune drops, as they drop few of them, and it also slows you down -- grab only the better runes and herbs.

Beware of killing ghasts while they are positioned over a pond -- you may lose the drop. Also, check carefully for herbs after each kill, because some of the better herbs camouflage surprisingly well with the swamp floor.